No one wants to contemplate the effects of an exploding tanker laden with 300,000 tons of crude oil. To place this ship in some perspective, the Exxon Valdez, which ran aground in the Gulf of Alaska in 1989, carried 53 million gallons of crude oil. The Sirius is carrying nearly 84 million gallons. If that amount of crude were to escape, the environmental damage to the Indian Ocean and the East African coast, upon which millions earn their living, would be catastrophic.
[From Op-Ed Contributor - Grand Theft Nautical - NYTimes.com]
The more of this stuff that gets transported - by any means - the more exposure there is to monumental environmental disaster. The impossible has a way of happening, and this isn't very impossible. It isn't even very unlikely, as the Exxon Valdez and numerous other incidents testify.
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